Should be sleeping!

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Jetlag. At it's finest. It's almost 1AM and I was extremely tired all day...now is the time for me to be sleeping. But I have no desire to sleep! I feel that as the days pass I will forget more and more things and I've been wanting to blog for days. So here I am 😊

I'm in Istanbul! I'm in my new home for a year! I am not in my bedroom yet, but I am here. And I like it! It's pretty great, actually. But let me rewind:

I left Seattle Friday night. The flight was an hour delayed but no big deal, I got to write a blog. The flight was 9 hours and I can gladly say that I slept most of it. When I woke up to breakfast being served there was only an hour left on the flight! British Airways disappointed me a bit though, this time around. The tv's in the plane were broken, so I couldn't watch any of the 30 or so movie options they had. That was really annoying. I could watch them, but only for seconds at a time and then the screen would go black. Lucky for me I sat next to a talkative guy on the plane who handed me his cell phone as soon as I sat down and said, "tell him I'm on a plane, please. just tell him I'm on a plane." Okay...so I told some guy that some other guy was on a plane. THEN he proceeded to tell me he is bi-polar and schizophrenic which is why his medication should help him sleep. Great. THEN, he says, "Actually this time is fine. I never usually sit by a girl, a very beautiful girl on the plane." Not sure the sentence even made sense and definitely wasn't sure how to respond. I think he was a little off. Lucky for me, after take off, I turned around and saw 3 empty seats so I definitely moved there right away and had 2 to myself and the other girl in the row used the other 2. I couldn't have asked for anything more! It was nice to be able to lay down and sleep!

I arrived in London Saturday at noon local time. My flight was scheduled to leave at 5:20, which isn't too bad of a layover considering how huge that airport is and that international flights board so early. I got off the plane and stood in an hour and a half line to go through customs. CARRYING all my stuff, and sweating my brains out. Seriously what could I have done wrong between the last time I went through security and now? I was on a plane! Thousands of us finally pass through security and I'm dying to get to internet and plug ins for my electronics. Stupid me, why would Heathrow have free internet (like good ol American airports)? And better yet, why would Heathrow have American outlets? Ya, they don't. So I had an almost dead computer and ipad and an upcoming 4 hour flight. Yay!

I exchanged all the dollars I had for pounds. That's $11....and I got 4 pounds. That is NOT a good deal. I quickly asked the lady at the currency place if that would be enough for Starbucks because that was my only purpose in exchanging. She said, "yes it should be. otherwise that is a very expensive cup of coffee."

I got my coffee....it took about 20 minutes too long. Unbelievable. But it was good and then I got to skype Jake for a while, by paying .19 cents a minute through skype to use internet. I quickly ran out of skype money and went and waited for my flight. It was delayed 45 minutes. Great. All I cared about was how I could tell the family in Istanbul to come later. I couldn't. Because internet was expensive and I had no phone. Finally, we take off. I have a whole row to myself, Yay!

That lasted for about an hour when the captain came on and said, "Regrettably, we're going to have to turn around and land at Heathrow." Huh? What? Why? I don't understand! No explanation. We turn around, fly all the way back, and land at a huge, massive airport that I know we aren't getting out of anytime soon. What surprised me though, was the reactions of everyone on the plane, most of whom were Turkish. After landing and realizing we couldn't get off the plane for another hour, everyone kind of huddled together and talked. No one scowled or yelled or complained, that I saw. I just saw people standing in groups smiling and talking. It was very noticeable! The captain came on and said that if we wanted to stay the night in London we could. My first thought was, "That's crazy, let's just hurry up and get there." Then I realized we wouldn't be landing in Istanbul until 3 or 4am and I had no way of telling the family who was picking me up! And who wants to drive to the airport at that time to pick up a stranger?!

So I started worrying, wondering what was best. Stay the night and tell them I COULD have made it but chose not to? Or fly there and wait at the airport all morning and risk them waiting for hours for me at the time it was SUPPOSED to have landed? I went with staying the night. Only one other girl chose to stay. They had to remove our luggage from the plane and then we had to go talk to the customer service people, who knew nothing about our situation, as we were promised they would. Finally, they agreed that we could have a hotel for the night.

The hotel was a 20 minute shuttle away and we waited for the shuttle for about 30 minutes. It was a long night! At this point in time, it is 11:15pm, which is when I should have been in Istanbul! The girl I was with let me borrow her iphone for a quick minute, so I could email my contacts. Very nice gesture but her keyboard and phone were in French so my message only frightened the woman I sent it to, rather than inform her! I only had a minute on the phone, and it was spell checking everything I wrote and changing it! It was horrible. I just found it in my email so here it is:

Renée this is bethany writing front soneones phone at The airport i
Will not get in untel tomorrow because of flight problem i Will
message you from hotel

Ha ha yes, pretty bad. So she was worried about me and had no idea why I spelt everything wrong and didn't include more information! Anyway, I finally made it to the hotel and of course, internet was terribly expensive and there's no way I was paying that much just to write one email. Luckily, the hotel was super nice and my friendly concierge, Muhammed, let me go behind the desk and use his internet for free! And the kind man at the check-in counter, who usually charges 15 pounds to borrow a CONVERTER for my charger, let me take it for free, after I explained my situation.

All I wanted to do was tell people where I was and when I would land. And I finally did! Everything else was pretty nice. I got a free dinner, a free breakfast, and I ended up stealing free internet 😊 and got to talk to Jake. I also got a huge, fluffy bed with 6 big pillows! I felt pretty lonely in a big hotel room by myself! I got a nice, hot shower, new clothes, and 3 1/2 hours of sleep before I had to get up and be back at the hotel for my 7am flight.

I will spare the details about missing my shuttle that morning to the airport, but I'd like to remember the fact that it happened a few years down the line when I read this blog 😊 Let's just say I was very thankful to be in my seat on the flight when we were taking off! And let me also mention that this flight was an hour delayed as well. COME ON British Airways?!?!?! And the flight attendants were horribly rude on this flight.

However, I made it to Istanbul and was now arriving only seconds after Lacey! I knew she landed close to 1pm and after my delay I was scheduled to land right about that time! Since we had no way of communicating, she had no idea that I would be at the airport. She thought I had already stayed the night in Turkey. I looked for her all throughout the customs line and didn't see her and while I was grabbing my bags, I hear, "Bethany? What are you doing here?" She was totally confused but it was funny. We took a picture (of course) and headed out to find our friend that was picking us up.

This could sound really stupid but I was immediately shocked at just how Turkish people looked! ha ha, what else would they look like? But so many big noses, and just....so Turkish! Exactly how I would expect Turkish people to look. I was also surprised at how many different people there were. People from every where, so diverse and interesting. And I feel that I need to add that I do not think all Turkish people have big noses. Not at all. I simply noticed that the noses that are big, are big.

This is now way longer than anyone would care to read 😊 and says nothing about being here so far. But that will be in the next blog. I wanted to remember my trip here, and now I will! More to come....I MUST sleep.

Let me just say that I am going to sleep with windows open and pouring down rain, with random bursts of thunder. I love it. Goodnight!

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Photos

Heathrow
Royal Wedding was on TV's all day, along with signs in the airport congratulating them!

The london eye
It was cool to see all of London from the sky

Luggage
Lacey and I's stuff! too much!

Meeting Huma!
With her cute sign!

Comments

[Jake]

Awesome! I love it all, keep it coming!!

[Jeanne]

Thanks for the update!!
It's great to know that you are there and glad to be!! Hope you did get some sleep and that the jet lag is gone before you know it!! Have fun, learn a lot, and keep the blogs coming!! Love you!!